


Not a Word

by alex_kade



Category: Ladyhawke (1985)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Isabeau has nightmares, it's cute, phillipe is doing his helpful thing again, shocked this fandom is still alive, so does phillipe, so he's there to solve their problem, united in our Ladyhawke love!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25393444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_kade/pseuds/alex_kade
Summary: Adjusting to a life of happily-ever-after is not as easy as it seems, but it can get there with a little help.
Relationships: Isabeau d'Anjou/Etienne Navarre
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	Not a Word

**Author's Note:**

> This was another kickstarter challenge. An anon writer drafted everything in italics to start the story off, the rest is mine.

_Isabeau huddled close behind her love as the horse galloped madly away from Aquila.  
  
“I have friends,” Etienne Navarre spoke as they fled. “I’ll not ask any of them to risk their lives for us, but they may know of a place where we can go.”  
  
“That alone will put them in danger!” she counseled. “The Bishop has a long reach. Can we not head for some wild place, the mountains perhaps, where we can live simply?”  
  
“No!” he countered. “I’ll not have you living in some woodsman’s hovel with dirt floors!”  
  
She could not help but to laugh. “Riches have not brought me happiness, perhaps it is time to give poverty a try.”  
  
“As one who has experienced it, I cannot recommend it,” Navarre answered gravely, slowing the horse to let him breathe. Goliath’s ribs heaved beneath them as they walked.  
  
Birds flew overhead, on their way to their nightly roosts. Already a bat or two could be seen. Soon it would be night.  
  
Etienne found a promising looking trail, using some criteria she knew not, and traveled down it a ways before finding a clearing and proclaiming that they would rest here for the night. He gathered wood and laid it out for a fire while she cared for poor Goliath, who had carried them so far and so quickly. She walked him until his sweat had dried, then removed his saddle and blanket and did her best to brush the dried sweat with handfuls of sweet grass, while he eagerly cropped the same. She gathered armfuls of the grass on top of the blanket and used that to carry it back to the camp so he could continue to eat even as they did.  
  
Etienne had a small but cheerful flame lit when she returned. “All I have is dried and salted meat, and hard bread, but we’re likely to want even that in a few days.”  
  
“Not to worry,” she said, “I have some chicken and bread, and apples. We can eat mine first, since yours will keep longer.”  
  
They slept that night, Goliath standing sentinel over them. As dawn broke, Isabeau woke to the sight of her lover. Smiling, she reached out to touch his face.  
  
Just then, an ominous crack thundered through the forest. The birds and beasts of the wood fell silent for a moment.  
  
A thick and purple smoke stretched across the sky, much like a hand reaching out to clutch at the very heart of the sun. It settled into the clearing, running along the ground and consuming all that it touched. The forest animals went mad, trying to avoid its terrifying embrace.  
  
“Etienne!” she screamed as the smoke reached her.  
  
But all he heard was the cry of a hawk._  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Isabeau woke with the sound of that horrible screech still ringing in her ears and her blood pulsing furiously through her veins. It took but a moment for her to realize that there was a frantic pounding on her door that matched the pounding in her chest, coupled by a frightened, pleading voice on the other side, and she wondered briefly if it had been Phillipe that had truly woken her or the echo of her hawk's lonely scream. Either way, she was thankful to no longer be trapped in her memories, and she wrapped a shawl around her shoulders as she slipped from her bed.  
  
"My lady, _please_ ," Phillipe continued to call out from the hall, his softly polite tone a contradiction to the speed with which he was beating on her door. "I beg you, open up. There are demons in the shadows here, and I see hunger in their eyes."  
  
A tiny smirk crossed her face, one that she graciously hid as she opened her chamber to her young house guest. He stood there in the hallway looking quite bedraggled with an apologetic smile crossing his features and a sheen of sweat cresting his brow, his eyes shifting from hers down the floor and back again as though he were ashamed to have woken her. Pity nearly consumed her as she reached her hand out to latch onto his, pulling him into the safety of her room.  
  
"Nightmares again, little mouse?" she questioned, making a point to lock the heavy door behind them.  
  
Phillipe ran a hand through his hair, an action that made it stand on end even more than it already was. "It's silly, I know, and I'm dreadfully sorry. I should be well past the age of fending off imaginary monsters in my sleep."  
  
Isabeau thought back to her own recent nightmare and shook her head. "Age holds no importance to such monsters. They seek out vulnerable hearts only to destroy them."  
  
"Vulnerable, you say?"  
  
His eyebrows shot up as he mulled over her answer, and a disputatious chuckle rose up from his chest that warned Isabeau of an upcoming argument. True to his nature, he began to pace back and forth as he formed his words in his mind, much like that of bard preparing to weave an epic tale. She folded her arms across her breast and perched herself on the corner of her bed, all too ready for a bit of entertainment.  
  
"I have survived a childhood of starvation and theft," he finally began. "I have been locked away in the most horrific of dungeons, and escaped only to be hunted down like a wild beast. I have been caught up in the type of adventure that I - no offense to you, of course - wished beyond wishes to take no part in, the kind with sorcery and death and, wonders never cease, voluntarily putting my life in reckless danger for the sake of two complete and utter strangers."  
  
"Which we are forever in your debt for," Isabeau dutifully interrupted, playing to his occasional desire to be recognized for his good deeds.  
  
He grinned back, a sort of delight that she would play this game with him lighting up his eyes. It was familiar to her in such a way that eased her further still from her previous fears, and she couldn't help but feel selfishly glad that he had suffered similar fears to her own. Had he not, he would not be there now keeping her own monsters at bay.  
  
"So you and Navarre have both claimed," he continued, "and have since repaid even though I asked for no form of payment. You've housed me, fed me, clothed me, and kept me from the cold. I have been more vulnerable to dangers than you will ever know, my lady, and I pray with all my heart that you never will; and yet here, in this house, where I have been the least vulnerable I have ever been in all my youth, I have been plagued by nightmares of such terror that I, myself, have never known. I cannot believe that vulnerability is what visits me in the night, my lady. There are evil spirits in this house, I'm certain of it. When Navarre returns we should seek out a safer place to call our home. Immediately."  
  
Isabeau fought the urge to applaud his performance, instead reaching her hand out as a beacon to draw him near. He came to her without hesitation, allowing her to grasp his fingers in hers as she gently refuted his final argument.  
  
" _This_ is our home," she smiled. "It is Eteinne's home, and therefore it is mine, and it shall be yours for however long you wish it. It's not the house that frightens you, Phillipe, but the quiet of it, especially when Navarre is away. We've wasted so much time looking over our shoulders that we've forgotten what it is to stand still and simply relax in the comfort of a life without dangers. We are vulnerable to the fear that we have not yet earned our peace in this world."  
  
" _We,_ my lady?" he asked, not with confusion but with a sense of understanding.  
  
It was her turn to duck her head, knowing she'd been caught in her own false bravado. "Yes, Phillipe, _we_. I dream, too. I dream of the day that Etienne and I were cursed. I dream of it when he goes away and I cannot wake to see him by my side, even if it is for but a single night. I fear losing him again and I cannot bear the weight of it."  
  
"Ah. Then I have a solution to your problem," he piped up, mischief dancing on his words. "When he returns we'll simply tie him to a chair and never let him leave it. Then you will never be apart from him again."  
  
She chuckled and rolled her eyes at his antics. "He'd kill us if we tried."  
  
"Oh, surely not you, my lady. He loves you more than the very breath that keeps him alive. Me, however..." He suddenly stood up straight and snapped his fingers. "Well, my mind is certainly full of clever thoughts this evening. If my nightmares come from where you claim they do, and I can see how they would, then all I need is a little danger in my life to ward them away. The logic in that is faulty, I know, but there is a certain sense in it. If we tie Navarre to a chair, thus directing his anger only at myself, then I shall forever sleep in fear that he will claim his revenge sometime in the night, all the while knowing that his revenge will not actually result in my death. He's in my debt, you see, so I know no real harm will come of it; and I'd much rather fear a monster that I know and trust than to fear one that I cannot see and therefore have no defense against. This will be the perfect solution to both of our problems!"  
  
Now Isabeau was filled with the type of genuine laughter that no nightmare could contend with. She allowed Phillipe to pull her to her feet as he continued on with talk of sturdy ropes and a chair that could not be easily broken. As he dragged her into the hall and passed his own chamber, she caught a glimpse of his bed that should have certainly been as tousled as her own had been. Instead it was made clean with not a single fold out of place as though it had never even been slept in at all.  
  
Oh, Phillipe. It had never been slept in at all. The truth of it struck her as she gazed at the back of her little mouse's head, a mouse who had never known how to properly make a bed. It was him, then, the one who had woken her from her screams and chased away her nightmares. Clever imp, he had known all along and had been standing post outside her door, waiting for his chance to play her knight in shining armor while her own knight was away, and doing so in such a fashion as to not take an ounce of credit for his noble nature.  
  
"Phillipe," she started, but stopped herself as he turned to her, his playfully boyish grin too full of youthful charm to disturb. Boastful as he could sometimes be, it only caused him embarrassment if ever he was praised too openly, and the last thing she wanted to do was to make him feel any discomfort. Simply seeing her happy was payment enough for his good deeds, such was his way, and who was she to deny him that happiness? With a laugh of her own directed more towards herself than to him, she altered the course of her previous statement. "There's a line of rope in the cellar stored away for when the well's line goes thin. That will hold a man if we knot it correctly."  
  
"Perfect, and it just so happens that I know how to tie a proper knot. I've certainly escaped enough of them, I should know how to form one to stop even the likes of myself. Consider it a lesson to him for leaving you alone. He'll think twice before he does it again."  
  
Except Navarre _hadn't_ left her alone, had he? No, he had rather told her to look after Phillipe while he was away, but she believed now that it had really been the other way around. Her love had left her instead in Phillipe's care, yet again, as he had done on those horrid nights when he could not be with her in the form of a man. She had not been alone since their little mouse had slipped into their lives, and she would do well to remember that. Perhaps that comfort, in itself, would be enough to keep her nightmares from visiting her again.  
  
If not, well, perhaps there was some merit in tying her love to a chair, after all. It would be worth the amusement at seeing the look upon his face, and if he demanded to know whose idea it was, she would claim it as her own. She could be Phillipe's silent knight, as well, and none would be the wiser. Neither one would say a word.

_~Fin~_


End file.
